The Cliff
I stepped off the cliff of alcoholism some time ago. I can’t pinpoint the exact time or occurrence, but I can say that the fall was very long. The impact of all my drinking was a crash into sharp rocks and crashing waves. I was broken and drowning all at the same time.
Like a dream my fall seemed more like floating at first. It was unperceivable, except for the cliff’s edge moving slowly away from my grasp. As time went on, I fell faster, watching as the rock face sped by, only catching snippets of things to grasp onto in my decent. Soon the cliff’s edge was gone from view, and I didn’t dare to look down to see the point of my impact. I was alone and falling, and I could still barely hear the voices from above beckoning me to stop. How could I stop? I was free-falling without a safety net. My only comfort was the drink. The drink muffled the voices. The drink quashed the fear of the fall.
As I fell, my life’s development that led up to my tumbling off the edge weren’t evident. I couldn’t draw a connection between what drove me closer to the point of descent. I wasn’t sure if I had fallen or jumped off into the groundless air. Something had drawn me to the edge, and it wasn’t just alcohol. There were people and organizations and jobs and the pressure of pretending to be someone other than me. There was pain there. There was the constant nudge of discomfort. Most of all there was fear.
When it came to the edge of the cliff, I had long ago decided that death wasn’t something I feared. It was a wild boast full of hubris and confusion. I didn’t realize that avoiding the fear of death was not the same as not fearing death. But even more importantly, I feared life. The view towards the horizon was endless and unreachable. The view down was monumental but also incalculable in its depth. I couldn’t connect a bridge between where I was and the possibilities on the horizon. Above me was the known and unknown of a life that lacked purpose. Below me was the siren, its song beckoning me toward the comforting daze of alcohol; a solution to end my fear of all possibilities. Without purpose to grab onto, I simply fell at an increasing velocity.
I never really knew I was falling until I was off the edge and on my way down. In my mind I was still firmly planted on steady ground. Life seemed the same, people and events moved around me, and with a thick veil I operated without much consequence. My journey downward with my comforting liquid friend became a solidified connection, and we used each other more and more often. With our continued engagement, the passage of time and space became more blurred and without a solid base to stand on, my actions and outcomes were sketchy. I pretended to be firmly planted in a world of controlled reality, and alcohol gave me the belief system that placated actual reality.
When it finally happened, the impact of my fall was the accumulation of battering, bruising and abandonment on the way down. Many times, a hand would reach out to slow my momentum, or to stop me altogether. I would wrench my body as I twisted and turned every which way to escape the grasp. I bounced off protruded rock faces, scraped against thorny roots of memories past, and felt the sting of the rushing atmosphere ripping at my body. All the while, I still didn’t dare to realize the ultimate impacts around me and below me, and I pretended that I was in endless flight instead of finite freefall.
I landed with a crash, and the pieces of my life were strewn around me. Some parts and pieces were carried and scattered in all directions and for unknown distances. Many of them heaped upon my chest and smothered and suffocated me with their daunting values. Nothing could be managed, and my fragmented existence burned and froze around me.
I didn’t lay there long. Despite the disintegrated nature of my being, I found sedation on the bottle to ease the dis-ease. I would put it down for a time in a half-hearted attempt to try to climb back up the cliff face and regain my grounded footing, only to fall again, over and over as one hand kept reaching for the bottle and one foot kept pawing at thin air, leaving the other two limbs to maintain the hold. I didn’t have the strength to reach any height of significance. I could not go it alone.
I tarried at the bottom for some time. I could see others stumbling about (in their own despair) nearby, sorting through the human wreck of their existence, and it gave me little hope as their condition was the same if not worse than mine. In the thick air I could swear I heard voices calling me from above, beckoning me back up, assuring me they could help, but all I could see around me was a sea of smashed bottles and shattered hope. I was awash in its cunning and lies.
In the midst of it all I cried and prayed, calling out to something from above to throw me lifeline and pull me back to the edge. I pleaded for escape of the crashing waves of my past, and I admitted fully that I was powerless against it all. Out of control, I had fallen into a life that was unmanageable. I needed help. I needed sanctuary, solace, and a return to sanity. I cried to the heavens, reaching up with all my remaining strength and beckoned a power higher than me to send a lifeline of any sort.
Then one appeared.
Dangling above me, within my grasp and close enough that I could touch it was technicolor rope woven of truth. It connected to me physically, yet there was a spiritual connection that transcended the closing of my fingers and pull of my arms. Somehow, I was being carried, but the force of the action was beyond my base willpower to regain my footing and escape the cold sharp plane that had only moments ago been my demise. Things were different. The lifeline connected me to the voices above me, calling out to me to remain strong and true. I could hear them now, and I could feel them. My ascent from the depths to the top wasn’t effortless, as I realized the inner and outer strength it took to get back up the cliff face. But other powers were at play here. My hands were guided towards the proper holds, and my feet held steady in their placement, as muscle and brain combined with the efforts and care of people around me to get me inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot, and mile after mile to the ridge. The hindrance of the bottle was left behind.
At times I would linger. Feeling I had done what needed to be done and coasting on the power of my lifeline seemed to be enough for now. I felt better so things must be better. My complacency caused me to lose the grasp on the powers pulling me upward, and it wasn’t long before I was sinking back down again, losing what I had gained and threatening to fall all over again. If I could not discipline myself then through the consequences of falling over and over again, others would be forced to discipline me. Now instead of a lifeline pulling me up back to stable ground, I would be forced into isolation by the society that surrounded me. I languished on the rock face. I would face serious health problems from falling and breaking my body and mind, possibly with no means of recovery. I would have no purpose or promise in my life. When hope died, I would die with it.
Self-discipline was required for me to not just hold onto my lifeline, but to find the steps within myself to traverse and ascend the cliff face. I had to search for and find people and things that could help me navigate from the depths to the heights. Any assistance to aid my bruised and battered being had to be welcomed, as I did not have the strength and did not know the way. I would scramble this way, and then another, sometimes sliding with fear gripping my heart, and sometimes resting to catch my breath. It was an arduous journey, but one I quickly found that I did not have to make alone.
I moved upward at a snail’s pace at times, and in spurts of discovery at others. It wasn’t long before I could see the precipice I had fallen from. My eyes held to it as I scratched and clawed up the remaining distance, resting my hands on the edge, and then taking in the grasp of others as I was heaved up and onto solid ground again.
I stood on weak and feeble legs. On one side of me was the open air of nothingness, its familiarity beckoning. On the other side was a fog of unknown, so dense that I could not make out any feature inside of it. Along the cliff’s edge I could make out other figures in my position, some wandering about aimlessly, others flirting with a simple slip and fall, and still others stepping off and disappearing without even a yelp. I began to despair, when suddenly I heard from the fog familiar voices beckoning me to escape the allure of the cliff and begin a journey away from it.
A gust of wind and a sliding foot caused a shower of stones to fly off into the unknown, and almost took me along with it. I didn’t want to go back there. There was nothing there for me any longer, so with a breath and willful determination, I took the first step away from the cliff, into the shroud, and toward a life that was a beginning, not a repeated ending.
I sought discovery.
I entered recovery.